Ares I artist concept. Image credit: NASA/MSFC
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With an area economy anchored in aerospace, technology, and Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville holds its breath each year as the new federal budget is released.
February 1, 2010, President Obama announced the release of the 2011 federal budget. With it came the announcement that not just the new Ares rockets, but the whole Constellation program, including Orion, was being canceled.
Constellation is the program overseeing the development of the new fleet of spacecraft. The bulk of the design and development of the Ares I and Ares V, the crew and heavy launch flagships of the new fleet, was being done at Marshall Space Flight Center, MSFC, the NASA side of Redstone Arsenal. The new fleet was also to include the Orion crew exploration vehicle and the lunar lander, Altair.
Rumors have been flying for weeks, but with the release of the FY 2011 federal budget official, members of the MSFC community are trying to discern how the changes will affect them, their jobs, the progress they have made in the design of a new rocket, and the future of space exploration in this nation.
For additional information:
- Statement by Charlie Bolden NASA Administrator, Feb.1, 2010
- NASA Budgets and Plans Overview
- Fiscal 2011 NASA Budget Overview
- Office of Science and Technology Policy NASA Fact Sheet
- Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2011
Comments
Huntsville might want to go after some of those new commercial space development firms. The Ares system would have been good to have, but maybe a politically sensitive program isn't the best thing to base a community's economy on.
That's sad for the local economy.... What was the goal of the project?
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